I am brand new to Ubuntu (and installing operative systems/partitioning/etc...) and up to know everything has been going smoothly, but now I'm having a problem that I think I can fix, but just don't know how...

I wanted to have a dual-boot, so I installed Windows and then Ubuntu in separate partitions. My disk available space is about 580GB, I gave 230GB to Windows and when installing Ubuntu, I set up a partition of 120GB with a 8GB swap space. The problem I have now is that Ubuntu took all the remaining space in my disk. I wanted the remaining 230GB to be a partition to keep my files.

So, what I tried to do was to resize (reduce) the Ubuntu partition from the Ubuntu Installation CD. I started GParted after running the "Try Ubuntu" option, made "swapoff" to the swap partition, reduced the size and then applying the operations... up to know everything seemed to work, just that the computer turns off itself after five minutes or so when applying the operations.

I tried this several times with no success. Now I'm afraid I won't be able to make the resize operation... I don't adventure into any other possibilities, since I'm afraid to screw up my boot. What am I missing? Is there any other alternative I can use?

I am not suggesting I have the answer, since it sounds as if you prepared well, but would it be possible to post a link to a screenshot of the current partitions, and also just before you apply the changes??
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Jacob VlijmMar 27 '14 at 17:39

Hi Jacob, Thanks for your reply. I tried to get and give as much info as possible, but I'm for sure missing something. I was trying now to find which is the command to list my partitions and the where to run the command line to add the info to my question, still can't find them... How can I link to an Image? I was trying to add it to my question but I still don't have enough reputation to post images.
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 17:47

Ok, the link to the actual partition breakdown should be this... imgur.com/7XeQoyI Now I'll try to retrieve the screenshot just before applying the changes
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 17:56

Thanks! I could't get the screenshot while running from the CD (save it to my ubuntu file system or USB drive)... I hope the info I provided up to now is good enough for trying a solution.
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 18:22

How did you resize sda6? from the right side I think, to create the datapartition after sda6? it should only take minutes, as no data has to be moved.
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Jacob VlijmMar 27 '14 at 19:08

1 Answer
1

If you need to resize a partition, on which you already installed Ubuntu, the best way is to do it from right to left, so the data will not have to be moved.
The whole procedure should take a minute or two.

first choose to resize:

then drag the partition's right side to the left

and then creat a new partition in the unallocated space

I am not sure what went wrong in your case, but this way, it should work, I just tried to resize on my laptop. If it does not solve your problem, I will remove the answer.

Thank you Jacob, I will try and let you know!
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 19:37

Hi! It worked!! Thank you very very much! Just a couple of remarks to trace back, because I'm curious: 1. When I was resizing, I was not sliding the side of the partition, but directly assigning a value in the new partition side: which is the difference between this procedures? 2. Before this trial, I was making the whole partitioning process with no battery, but only plugged to the current: can this affect the outcome? Again, thank you very much. I am amazed with this whole concept of collaborating community. Hope to be helpful in the future!
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 20:16

I am really glad it worked. To be honest, with the images, I wanted to make sure everything went "by the book", to make sure it -was- from right to left, and to exclude mistakes. Unless you did not leave the first field zero, your procedure should do the same. Even if you did it wrong, it is no explanation why your computer shut down, like psusi suggested. Just to make sure, I would check if your fan is working proparly and there is not too much dust in your computer. The use of the battery should not make any difference, as long as the power is sufficient.
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Jacob VlijmMar 27 '14 at 20:35

Yeah, I was also wondering if it could be an overheating problem (as psui was also suggesting), but I am not really sure how to check for it. However now I have the partitions I wanted, so thanks again.
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flavsMar 27 '14 at 20:45